Every week, I like the Shadows House OP more and more. The song is called Shall We Dance and it’s by this lovely young artist named ReoNa. She has a great voice. I have discovered a lot of Japanese artists I love to this day through anime OPs and EDs. I like that there’s some effort put into them. Well not all the time but this time!
I’m not sure how to frame this post. I have a lot of thoughts but should I’m wondering if I should walk you through my process as if we were watching episode 4 of Shadows House together. I’ll try it. ‘m sorry if it doesn’t work out…
After listening to that great OP and making a note to look up the artist, the episode properly started. Maybe it’s because of the mystery constantly surrounding this show, but I find that it’s very easy to just get into an episode and hit the ground running. I have a feeling Shadows House is the type of show that is an acquired taste but when you do acquire it, it goes down easy. So I was ready to find out what the heck happened to the twins. And I still am since no one told us.
Instead, we got a meeting of the Star Bearers and suddenly things got very interesting. For one, Barbara suggested that executions weren’t uncommon in Shadows House. But more striking to me was Barbara herself. Because of the uncontrollable nature of her soot, we have hardly gotten the chance to know Barbara. Every time we’ve seen her, she was either suffering in the throws of some sort of soot attack (I made it up, like a panic attack but with soot) r quietly keeping to herself, probably to recover. So I was left with the impression that she was emotionally meek and was being kept around only because of the amount of sot she could generate. That Barbi might be overbearing her.
But instead, we got a commanding but cool natural leader. One that thinks through problems and can easily command a room with calm words because she has both presence and reason on her side. Even with just this little tidbit, Barbara is turning out to be a truly fascinating character. At this point, I wrote down, she kind of reminds me of Kate.
And she does, or at least she did until the episode reminded me what Kate is really like.
Kate has always been a good character. Not my favourite in isolation but I do like her a lot and I think she brings something irreplaceable to the ensemble. I always enjoy it when she’s onscreen. and yet…
I title my episode reviews with single words. Stay with me I’m going somewhere. As such, character names are particularly useful as post titles. And yet, throughout all of season 1, I never used Kate as a post title. She’s the deuteragonist. I used Emilico as the title for my episode 1 post! Even though she was always there and always important, it never felt like Kate really got her moment. Well, she got it this week, and it was glorious. I hadn’t realized how badly it was needed. With kate now slamming her cards down on the table, the game is starting to really take shape. It also balances out the cast perfectly.
Or I should say, it would have been perfect if Emilico wasn’t kind of bad at her job and utterly failing at making the correct facial expressions for the situation. Ahh well, it was adorable!
We also got to see the treatments for soot sickness. These scenes are probably the closest thing to actual horror we have gotten in the show and I must say, they were effective. I had trouble watching them. And it reinforces my view that the Shadows can replace their dolls. They know the treatment could permanently brake them yet most of them are rather unconcerned.
I don’t know where to put this but apparently, Shadows cast shadows. That made me happy!
The episode ends on yet another cliffhanger. It works for the genre. This time Ollie is in a mad dash towards Emilico just as the screen cuts to black. It was framed as a very intense and intimidating moment but I bet Oliver just wants to try to convince Emilico to help with his experiments since she jumped in to control the vacuum.
Previous Posts
Season 1
- Shadows House episode 1 – Emilico
- Shadows House episode 2 – Impure
- Shadows House episode 3 – Broken
- Shadows House episode 4 – Murder
- Shadows House episode 5 – Bearer
- Shadows House episode 6 – Proposal
- Shadows House episode 7 – Sunshine
- Shadows House episode 8 – Revelation
- Shadows House episode 9 – Reunion
- Shadows House episode 10 – Fairies
- Shadows House episode 11 – Human
- Shadows House episode 12 – Escape?
- Shadows House episode 13 – Caesura
Season 2
I often have nothing to say because literally nothing remains in memory. Not so with Shadows House. Here I have nothing to say, because too much happens, and I’m currently too tired to sort through it in terms of writing. (When I’m tired typing up stuff is hard.) It’s also hot and humid, which contributes. But, boy, does Shadows House deliver week after week. I totally didn’t see that ending coming, with John tearing down the entire facade… It helps that team mad science is probably the most openly in favour of our protagonists among the star bearers (“openly” being a key word here; not sure what’s going on inside their respective minds).
The Barabara/Barbie dynamic is probably what draws my attention the most this season so far. Very interesting.
I am having a great time with this season. I like how they essentially switched up the questions on us and yet it all flows together
I still think that Emilico is my favorite character, but Kate is such a wonderful mastermind. This show is just getting better all the time
They balance each other out.
I’ve never heard of this…and now I want to see it.
It’s an acquired taste but if you like it, it’s so unique
I’m going to give it a try!
Maybe Edward knew that if Kate was officially released from her room, she would be more than simple threat. She’ll be unstoppable.
And she is now XD
Edward had some pretty good foresight!